By Shaun Penner

ACRP awards County of Grande Prairie $1.3 million for water project

Mar 9, 2019 | 6:00 AM

The County of Grande Prairie has been granted $1.3 million from the Alberta Community Resilience Program, for work done last year to protect Aquatera water intake lines from erosion along the Wapiti River.

The work was done along the bank of the river last year by the water utility provider, which included sump-pumping at the water plant, planting of live willows along the river bank (and in the river), as well as shoring up the banks of the river.

Aquatera was not able to apply for such grants, as pointed out by County CAO Bill Rogan, as only municipalities can apply to the ACRP.

“Of course, Aquatera is a municipally-owned corporation, so we applied for the project given it was in the County,” said Rogan. “We’re very grateful for the grant. Obviously, it will help keep water rates down for all member municipalities of Aquatera.”

The money the County received on Aquatera’s behalf will essentially be a “balancing-of-the-books” according to Rogan, to help cover the cost of the project.

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“We simply have to account for the dollars that were spent,” explained Rogan. “To show we spent the 1.3 (million dollars). The money that comes back will be used, really, for other projects. But we show them (the province) that we did spend money to fund that project.”

The ACRP was created to support municipalities in the development of long-term resilience to flood and drought events, and also to help build functioning watersheds. Once a project is approved through the ACRP, 90% of costs (up to $3 million) will be covered by Alberta Environment and Parks. They will fund up to 70% of any costs in excess of that $3 million.

The Town of Sexsmith was also awarded just over $1.1 million, for a project to mitigate chronic overland flooding along the creek, by increasing creek capacity.